Super Dragon in Review – Cool, But Not Really Super

Super Dragon is another physics based puzzle game, but at least it doesn’t have the same “topple buildings and defeat the opponents within” type feel that the Angry Birds movement spurred. This time around you play a dragon that simply wants to get his teeth back so he won’t be laughed at by all his friends. Naturally, though, your teeth end up in all sorts of precarious spots, and it’s to you and your fireballs to figure out how to get them back without knocking yourself out in the process.

Yep, in this game you have the potential of being your own worst enemy. Well, technically it’s the ton of furniture and old appliances that will eventually do you in, but you will certainly help the process along. It seems your teeth always end up on top of a pile of stuff that would make any self respecting hillbilly proud, and in order to get to your chompers you need to clear away as much of the stuff as possible. On each level you’ll have a certain number of fireballs that you can launch by pulling the dragon’s tail and dragging to aim. When you let you go you can sit back for a bit and watch the resulting carnage ensue. The trick is to destroy enough stuff so that your teeth can fall to where you are waiting.

The problem is that these things hurt when they knock you on the head. If too many things strike you in the head before the teeth get to you the round is over. If the teeth fall “out of bounds” or get stuck somewhere when you run out of fireballs, the round is over. Falling ice can freeze you, which can be a bit problematic. Then there are the three rainclouds on each level. They can pour rain on you to douse your flames, generate lightening to fry your body or turn into little tornadoes to deflect your shots, none of which are a good thing. Getting these clouds earns you stars so you can unlock level sets, so you need to time things so that your fireballs strike the clouds when they are behaving. Timing can be quite tricky on some of these levels.

Then there are the hats. A football helmet deflects some of the falling debris, while an umbrella helmet protects you from the rain for a while. There are several others that can come to your aid as well, and if you’re lucky you’ll find them tucked in present boxes on the levels. Otherwise you can head over to the shop to purchase them, but this is a costly proposition because you have to buy the hats in groups of 5 and the cheapest bundle is 250 coins. So far I’ve found that I don’t earn very many coins on any given level. Of course IAP can help you there. In my opinion the hats should just make life a bit easier or they should not be so costly to acquire, because there are some levels that seem nearly impossible without them. I also feel I should mention that there is a two player mode, but to date I have not been able to try it because as soon as Game Center finds me a random opponent I seem to get disconnected immediately.

The graphics are cute, and it’s fun to watch all the stuff breaking apart and falling down. And even though you really start to feel sorry for the poor dragon, it is amusing watching him get a cartoon-style goose bump on his head, fried to a crisp and more. The sound effects do a great job of augmenting the silly nature of the game, especially when the dragon cries out because he knows he’s not getting his teeth. Sadly there is little music, and the riff that does play during the menus is only two or three bars long so it gets repetitive way too fast.

I like the concept behind Super Dragon, and it definitely has a fun atmosphere. It doesn’t feel like just another clone of something else, and there’s certainly plenty of challenge to be had. I just think they need to tone the difficulty down a bit or make it easier to acquire hats so that the game doesn’t become a matter of dumping enough IAP into it to be able to purchase the right hats to win. I’d also love to see a stable multiplayer mode as I’m curious to see how that feature actually plays out.